Responding to a medical equipment tender — and winning it

Most lost bids are not lost on price. They are set aside before being read, for a missing document, a specification not addressed or an absent signature. A tender is an exercise in compliance before it is a commercial exercise.

Step 1: decide whether to bid at all

Bidding costs time, and a rushed submission damages your reputation with the buyer. Ask five questions before committing:

• Does my product meet every mandatory specification, without exception?
• Do I hold the required registrations and certificates, valid at the submission date?
• Can I meet the stated delivery deadline, allowing for customs clearance?
• Can I provide after-sales service across the geographic scope required?
• Do the volume and margin justify the work, the bid bond and the fees?

A single clearly negative answer among the first four: do not bid. Concentrate your effort on the tenders you can win.

Step 2: take the specification apart

Read the whole document, then build a compliance matrix. One line per required specification; opposite it, your corresponding characteristic and the page of the technical documentation that proves it.

That matrix serves three purposes: it immediately reveals gaps, it structures your writing, and it makes the evaluation committee's work much easier — which works in your favour.

Look in particular for:

• mandatory specifications ("must", "shall") as opposed to desirable ones;
• the scoring grid, where published: it tells you where to invest effort;
• requirements for training, warranty and servicing, often scored and often treated carelessly;
• the language required for the bid and for the instructions for use.

Step 3: ask your questions within the window

Tenders provide a clarification period. Use it. An ambiguous specification clarified in writing protects you, and answers are circulated to all bidders — so you give away no advantage. Never asking, then discovering the ambiguity after bid opening, is a beginner's mistake.

Step 4: build the technical offer

Follow the specification's order and numbering. Never make the evaluator search. For each point:

• quote the required specification;
• state your product's value;
• cite the page of the technical documentation that demonstrates it.

Attach the manufacturer's original documentation, not a reworded sales brochure. And if you offer a variant, say so explicitly, with its justification: a concealed variant is always discovered, and it disqualifies.

Step 5: the financial offer, and what it must include

Price everything that is asked for, and check three classic traps:

• The required Incoterm. If the buyer asks for delivery installed on site, your price must include freight, duties, inland transport, unloading and commissioning.
• The bid validity period. Over six months, currency risk is on you. Build it in.
• Consumables and parts. Many tenders ask for a multi-year consumables price list, and score it. Prepare it properly: it is often where the gap between two bidders is decided.

The seven most frequent grounds for disqualification

1. Submission after the deadline — even by minutes.
2. Bid bond missing or in the wrong form.
3. A certificate expired at the submission date.
4. A mandatory specification not addressed in the response.
5. Documents unsigned, uninitialled or unstamped as required.
6. Price expressed in a different currency or Incoterm than requested.
7. An incomplete offer: a missing lot or line where the tender requires the whole.

None of these concerns the quality of your product. All are avoidable with a control read by a second person the day before submission.

After the award

Whether you win or not, request the award report or feedback on your scoring. You will learn your real gap on price and on technical merit, and you will know what to correct. The suppliers who win regularly are the ones who analyse their losses.

On MedicalExpo Africa, browse the published tenders from buyers across the continent, and create your supplier account to be visible to buyers looking for your specialty.